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Title: Managing Principal UX Designer

(remote)

Location: Washington, DC

This is a remote position

Ad Hoc is a digital services company that helps the federal government better serve people. Our teams use modern, agile methods to meet the needs of our users while closing the gap between consumer expectations and government. We’re looking for people with an entrepreneurial spirit and the desire to improve how the government serves people. If you thrive on change and can see the possibilities in ambiguity, then we want you here with us.

Work on things that matter

Working at Ad Hoc means putting your time and skills towards helping the government better serve the public. Our teams connect Veterans with services designed for their needs, help millions of people access affordable health care, and support important programs like Head Start. As we work with agencies to deliver critical services, we’re also changing how the government thinks about and uses technology.

Built for a remote life

Ad Hoc is remote-first and remote-always. We’ve designed our culture, communications, and tools to support a nationwide team since the beginning. Being remote by design allows Ad Hoc to bring the best people onto our teams and give them the freedom to create a work environment that fits their lives. With a generous PTO policy and Slack channels for every interest (from bird watching to space nerds to home decor), our company culture acknowledges all the things happening in your life. Maybe you need to adjust your schedule to care for your family or take a bike ride. At Ad Hoc, that’s welcomed.

What matters most

Ad Hoc values acceptance, accountability, and humility. We aren’t heroes. We leave our egos at the door to learn from our mistakes and improve the process for the next time. We’re a team that loves the challenge of government-size projects and loves to see our customers succeed. We build small, inclusive teams to bring the best of consumer technology to the problems of government.

The Veterans Affairs business unit helps transform the VA into a modern digital services organization where Veteran outcomes are at the center of every effort. We partner with the Office of the Chief Technology Officer – Digital Experience, the Office of Information Technology, Veterans Health Administration and Veterans Benefits Administration to design and deliver seamless user experiences for Veterans, their Families and Caregivers and VA employees. By applying better practices in service design, product management and technology, we enable VA to increase the usage, throughput, quality and reliability of services and decrease the time Veterans spend waiting for outcomes.

What you’ll do as a Managing Principal UX Designer

Our Managing Principal UX Designer will focus on the direction of design at the program level, contributing in meaningful ways to key design work, operations, strategic initiatives, and management of the program. You’ll provide overall guidance and inidual career direction for your assigned team.

A Managing Principal Designer is an experienced designer who directs design on their program and/or leads strategic design initiatives across a portfolio of products or programs. They lead key design work, operations, and management, and positively shape product strategy. The Managing Principal Designer applies their deep knowledge of design methods and approaches to proactively tackle undefined, complex challenges and consistently bring a big picture, strategic mindset to their work. They are excellent storytellers who draw connections across siloed workflows to surface challenges and articulate it in a cohesive future vision that influences leadership and stakeholders to take action. They hire, mentor, manage and provide overall guidance and inidual career direction to their assigned teams.

As a people leader within the design practice, you will build, lead, and develop other members from your practice and ensure they adopt and apply the best practices, principles, and values that are important to the health and quality of the design practice and to our customers.

Some of your responsibilities will include:

• Principals do very little delivery-focused, traditional design craft activities. Their craft is in the guidance, mentorship, and conflict resolution amongst designers who are pushing this work directly.
• Plan and facilitate collaboration, building strong relationships across disciplines, customers, business partners, senior management, and colleagues. Able to synthesize multiple inputs into a cohesive approach and get buy-in.
• Set and align expectations with their team, customers, and the company as a whole. Expertly facilitates interactions towards course correction when goals are misaligned.
• Manage performance, in terms of both craft and associated competencies relevant to career development, for assigned iniduals within your practice. This includes supporting program managers in hiring, onboarding, and conducting annual performance reviews.
• Provide coaching and development to design team members, which includes regular 1-on-1s, defining growth goals and development plans with iniduals, and creating a culture where team members can learn and evolve.

Some basic requirements

• • All work must be conducted within the U.S., excluding U.S. territories
  • As a government contractor, you may be required to obtain a public trust security clearance
  • Some of our available roles are on federal contracts that require a degree or additional years of experience as a substitute
  • Some federal contracts require U.S. citizenship to be eligible for employment

• Some basic requirements
  • Years of Experience: 5+ years of experience
  • Degree Requirement: Bachelors degree in any field
  • Acceptable Substitution for Degree: 8 additional years of experience

Tips for applying

• Include a portfolio of 3-5 UX-focused work samples with your application. We want to understand how you think and solve problems. Clearly explain your process and the reasoning behind the decisions made, including visual artifacts, and identify both your role and the impact you had. Your portfolio can be anything from a website to a slide deck. How you build it is up to you.

Ad Hoc is a great place to be. Our benefits package includes:

• Company-subsidized health, dental, life, and vision insurance
• Use what you need vacation policy
• 401K with employer match
• Paid parental leave after one year

Ad Hoc LLC is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, age, pregnancy, disability, work-related injury, covered veteran status, political ideology, marital status, or any other factor that the law protects from employment discrimination.

In support of the Colorado Equal Pay Transparency Act, and others like it across the country, Ad Hoc job descriptions feature the starting range we reasonably expect to pay to candidates who would join our team with little to no need for training on the responsibilities we’ve outlined above. Actual compensation is influenced by a wide range of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, and responsibility. The range of starting pay for this role is $128,183 – $169,065 and information on benefits offered is here. Our recruiters will be happy to answer any questions you may have, and we look forward to learning more about your salary requirements.